Wellington 5: Salvation, Deliverance and Makara again

Day Five!  Twas decided to play in Makara again, and include a lap up and down Salvation and Deliverance.  The climb up Salvation was sweet, and waaay shorter than I'd remembered it.  Seemed to take no time at all.  At the top I rolled off up the road for a bit to look for another apparently 'rocky' entrance to Deliverance that I'd read about online, but no.  Rolled back down to see the rest of the crew arrive.  Off into the descent.  Nelson out front, then, i think, Pete then me, and I thought Mark was right on my tail, but it turned out it was Alistair, rattling down the rocks and roots behind me.  Part way down the rockiest section I found myself blind from runny eyes, and had to pull up.  I let Alistair go and then followed.  A few techknuckle features later and there's a bit hold up where Nelson had dropped off the big drop and his front wheel had burped him off the track.  Bike cluttered down into the woods and him left hanging on.  We all gradually regrouped, then Warren wandered down with a flat too.  After that was fixed, off again.  More interspersed techknuckle features then I round a corner and there's Pete with a garked knee (again!) and a very close call to speak of, what with the exposed warratah sticking out of the side of the track that could have pierced his ribs if he'd landed worserer.  Rolling again and into that wee chutey bit, I cleaned all the rocky entry, but got to the root drop into chute and baulked.  Quickly ran down and remounted and rolled through to a regroup before the final up and down and in and out of the creek to final exit climb.  Phew.   DeMaperanced - 4.82 km loop, with only 155m of altitude - surprising that is..

The vehicle drivers took the vehicles to Makara and we all rode through to the Cafe at the Cricket Grounds for lunch.  Then a brief sojourn to Mud Cycles for a good gawk and off back along the roads to the park.  Up Koru, the proper way this time, then Sally Alley and brief regroup to enter new climb Three Bros leading to the Snake Charm up to the top.  Pete and Alistair headed down to do Peak Flow (cos they'd missed it the day before), and then they were chasing back up, while the rest of the crew did North Face, and Nelson, Mark and myself did Trickle Falls, which was super uber techknuckle.  The 'filter' at the top a damned good indication of a few of the features to follow.  I walked a few, but rode a heap.  Nelson rode everything, but even Mark actually walked one or two (one or two less than me tho).  We ended up out on some street, Allington Rd, up which we rode and into Allington Rd Connector track which crossed where JFK becomes Smokin'.  We heard the other's voices here and they arrived and we all rode down Smokin' to where it crossed Snake Charmer where some headed down and out (Steve, Robin, Tony???) and the rest of us clambered on back up to the top again.  From here we thought we'd check out T3 which was cool, lots of interesting features, like a lizard covered in bike tires, and a chain-swing boardwalk thing.  At an intersection there was the option of Vertigo down, or Varley's.  Nelson, Mark, Alistair and me chose Vertigo, while the rest took Varley's.  Vertigo was awesomesauce.  Not as rugged as Trickle, but lots of really fun steeeeeeep sections.  Cleaned it all and felt damned good about it.  It ends on the same final stretch as Trickle, so we rolled up to Allington Rd again and up the connector and then down Smokin', Ridgeline Extension, SWIGG, Starfish, blazing out to the end, then rolling down and out to the Cafe to join the rest of the fellas and fellesse then to head back to base.  All good...Mappedkara - 20kms and nearly 700m alt.

PFMTBC Inc, WELLINGTON, 2007. junglevision

Mark Hubby, Tony Andrew Steve Pete Nelson and me flew up friday, 12.15 - van, covered trailer, motel downtown with mt vic just up the road. so, put bikes together and headed up Vic. found our way to the top, got a tip from some local riders and started to explore down round singletracks. if you got to know these they'd be a fun wee blast but searching our way round we will have missed out on lots of nice stuff, plus, it'd be raining all week so the tracks were all mucky mucky and rooty slippery...

Saturday, Drove to Makara. Tucked into Koru (gentle and nice), bit of a play in the skills area, then up Sally Ally (cruisy), Missing Link (cool), where i started to hear my pedal doing the crunchy thing. continued grinding up Aratihi eventually stopping nearing the top to decide that it was poked and i's gonna have to give up on it. so, walked up to the top of the peak, howling wind, and we tookoff down the 4wd track to the lower Ridgeline trail, and into Swigg (towards the end of Andrew crashed right behind me (i heard a swish, whump) garking his knee) and starfish (upon which Hubby dismounted right in front of me, garking his shin on this wooden bridge), and me not really enjoying myself much cos of the pedal concern. headed for town to get the fix for the pedal. Mudcycles, no rebuild kit. On ya Bike, no rebuild kit. Penny's... yep. so, got to work trying to get the outer bearing race from the pedal. it proved impossible so i gave the rebuild kit back and got me some Shimanos. much better. So, that afternoon we went back to Makara, and rode to the top of Sally Alley, then up the 4wd track to the peak, then down Aratihi to Leaping Lizard and all the way down that out to the end. Wicked descent, sketchy, techy, rocky. through the stream at the end, and back up the road to the car.

Sunday. parked-up in the Karori Sanctuary carpark. headed down to creek and began walking up the switchback trail to the fenceline, up the fence track to scoutden, then up to top of wrights hill. riding and walking. riding at the top. a chance meeting with a guy Nick who i somehow knew (we'd ridden somewhere sometime) convinced us we needed to do Deliverance and Salvation. so, down deliverance, proving too techy for some, relished by others, then lovely pedal back up salvation, and back to the fenceline track. i was the only one to ride up the grunty steep to the top, then me and nelson got talking to some other locals who suggested Carparts. the others had continued on ahead and didnt bother to wait, so missed out on what i would say is one of the best little sections of singletrack around. starting from the windturbine carpark, it goes not that far below the road for a while... twisty, fun. then crossed the road and back onto the fenceline track, which diverged at that point and had a jumpy section next to it all the way down, then a couple of weird downs and ups and then into a little singletrack section which ended up on the concreted switchbacky stepped in places walking trakc back down to the carpark.
later on, Mark, Nelson and me, went back to the sanctuary carpark, and rode/walked up again. over and down Salvation, back up it, and back down to sanctuary... nuts. down salvation was fantastic. slogging back up it wasnt so bad, down the top section to the scout den was cool, and so was the fenceline, but once it enters the tight ass trees again, yowch, i just lost my flow and had to dab around nearly every hairpin. then one last little climb to the van.

Monday, we headed back to Makara. barely anything left in the legs. rode round to and up Salvation (again) just cos it is so nice, to carpark, then back down we went (mark took Deliverance), awesome descent, pete filming it, then back into the park, huffed up Koru, messed about in skills, on up sally alley, Tony Andrew Steve and Pete all deciding to bail and just do the lower ridgeline etc etc down (then on into town on their bikes), Nelson Mark Hubby and me continuing to missing link, then up 4wd road, into a gale, then down aratihi, upper leaping lizard, Nikau, upon which i crashed, let it go a bit trying to go faster and just lost the frontwheel and over i went onto some rocks, jumped straight back on, hammered, and on up to missinglink. bit of a break there and a local guy (on a Switchback!) showed up. ended up seeing him over and over again, whenever he caught us up stopped, wondering which way to go, kinda..., anyway, up missinglink back to sally alley, blasted down it to the swigg/starfish intersection, down to magic carpet ride, then down livewires and back to van. hussin' it down livewires nearly caught me out too, i was so exhausted i was starting to make mistakes, and i was just about over the bars into a tree, dunno how i saved it... cleaned the stream crossing tho.